Author's Note: This is the last chapter of year 2. As for Lockhart, I got lazy and just decided to get rid of him. It will be a while before year 3 is published. Things are starting to get busy here so I cannot guarantee regular updates over the next few months. Dragonson.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter nor am I attempting to make any personal gain from this story.

Second Time Around: Year 2: Chapter 12: The End of the Year

Tuesday arrived and Harry and Neville had their plans worked out. Harry would ask the first question and Neville, along with anyone else who wanted to, would follow on. All they had to do now was wait for class to begin.

"Well, I must say that I was more than a little disappointed with some of your exams," Lockhart began when everybody had settled into class. "Although most of you passed many of the marks were, to say the least, disappointing. Clearly many of you had read my books to the depth which is required in this class."

"Professor Lockhart," Susan Bones said. "I would like you present you with this gift." She pulled out an unopened bottle of Butterbeer and walked to the front of the class, opening the bottle as she did so. "Drink up, Professor, you've earned it."

Everyone else thought this was strange behaviour, after all Susan had been one of Lockhart's biggest critics, but Harry suspected he knew what was happening. "Hang on a sec, Neville," he said quietly. "Let's see what happens here."

"You think it's part of the plan?" Neville asked quietly.

"I'd say so, yeah," Harry replied.

"Thank-you Miss Bones," Lockhart said opening the bottle taking a mouthful. "I know I'm not supposed to drink while in class but Butterbeer isn't really alcoholic so it should be ok."

"Professor Lockhart?" Harry asked.

"Yes, Harry?"

"Did you really defeat the werewolf you wrote about in your book?"

"No I didn't," Lockhart replied as he drank more from the bottle Susan had given him.

"What?" Hermione sounded shocked.

"Who did defeat that werewolf then?" Neville asked. Harry realised the bottle must have been laced with a truth serum, possibly veritaserum.

"It was some ugly old Armenian Warlock. I can't remember his name." Suddenly Lockhart seemed to realise what was happening. "Miss Bones. What have you done?"

"I'm doing exactly what my aunt told me to do, and it's working better than we expected."

"Yes, well, I'm afraid I cannot allow any of you to leave this room," Lockhart said as he pulled out his wand.

"Expelliarmus," a voice shouted from the corner of the room. Lockhart's wand flew out of his hand and was caught by Madam Bones, who was just lifting a disillusionment charm off herself. Nearby, a man was doing the same thing.

"What is happening?" Lockhart asked.

"You are under arrest for illegally modifying the memories of an Armenian Warlock. Undoubtedly there are other people who have fallen victim to your treachery as well. Williamson, kindly escort Gilderoy out of the room and take him to the Ministry. I assume you have no objections Professor Dumbledore?"

"None at all, Madam," Dumbledore said while removing his own disillusionment charm. Dumbledore was standing by the bottom of the stairs leading to Lockhart's office. "Students, as you no longer have a DADA teacher I shall be supervising your class for the rest of today while all future DADA classes for this year are cancelled. As for your exams I am going to assume that you have all passed and that you all studied to the best of your ability. You shall all receive Outstanding as your final mark."

"What about those of us who got Outstanding anyway," Hermione asked.

Dumbledore chuckled. "Miss Granger, you were the only student in the entire school who got an Outstanding in DADA. You will still be recognised as having been first in your year."

Hermione looked somewhat embarrassed as several of her classmates started laughing. After everybody had settled down, and Lockhart, auror Williamson and Madam Bones had left the room, Dumbledore sat on the teacher's desk and addressed the class. "I haven't taught a class in 23 years. Please excuse me if I make a mistake, although any mistake I do make will be far less severe than the one Professor Lockhart made. I certainly expect more from a Defence teacher than to simply take a drink without first checking to see if it were safe."

Susan put her hand up. "Sir that was only plan "A". We had a plan "B" worked out just in case."

"Indeed. Your aunt informed me that plan "A" as you put it would probably fail. I believe even she was surprised by how easy it was to trick him."

"Most of us already new Lockhart was inept," Harry said, earning a glare from Hermione.

"Professor Dumbledore," Hermione said, "you must have considered him competent if you appointed him in the first place."

"Professor Lockhart was the only applicant for the position. It was either appoint him or have a subject with no teacher available. I could not allow that to happen," Dumbledore replied.

"Considering how little we've learnt this year, I doubt it would have made any difference," Harry muttered to Ron and Neville, both of whom agreed with him.

As it turned out Harry was able to get similar marks to the previous year in all his other subjects. Like last year Harry finished 4th overall in his year. Hermione, of course, finished top of the year again with the same 2 Ravenclaws finishing 2nd and 3rd. Luna Lovegood did very well amongst the first years, achieving a top ten grade while Ginny Weasley was inside the top 1/3 of her year as well.

Gryffindor had already won the Quidditch Cup so the students were happy as they entered the Great Hall for the farewell feast. When Dumbledore confirmed they had won the house cup as well all the Gryffindors cheered. Once they had settled down again Dumbledore made another announcement: Gilderoy Lockhart was to face numerous additional charges. It was now clear that he had done essentially none of the things he claimed to have done in his books. The majority of the students cheered when this was announced also although some were clearly disappointed.

After the feast Harry returned to his dormitory for some last minute packing. Almost the only things he didn't pack, other than the clothes he would wear tomorrow, were the Marauder's map and his invisibility cloak.

After activating the map and donning the cloak he slipped out of the common room. The first place he visited was the classroom where he used to meet with his pet snake Sam. He hadn't seen Sam all year, nor had he seen Steven, her mate and tonight was no different. It seemed the snakes had all left the castle and Harry couldn't help but feel sad. Sam had been a good friend and was largely responsible for Sirius being free. She had bitten Peter Pettigrew early in Harry's first year at Hogwarts, an event that led to Pettigrew's arrest and Sirius being cleared of all charges.

After leaving the room Harry went to a statue he knew concealed the entrance to one of the secret tunnels out of the castle. After making sure no-one was nearby he entered the tunnel, following it all the way to the end. There he practiced advanced magic including apparating to the street outside 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging and back again. Everything there was its normal, boring self so he decided not to do anything, just to enjoy the freedom being able to apparate gave him.

Lastly Harry visited the Room of Requirement. He chose to enter his own secret storeroom first, checking that all 4 destroyed Horcruxes were still there. Once satisfied, Harry stepped out and re-entered the general storeroom where he had originally found the tiara. This time he was looking for an advanced potions book which would give an advantage the following year. While there he got books on basic Runes and Arithmancy as well. Although all three books had seen better days they fulfilled Harry's needs. Finally he returned to the common room and went to bed.

On the train ride home Harry shared a compartment with Ron, Ginny, Hermione, Neville and Luna. Neville was sitting between the two younger girls and appeared to get along well with both, Ginny especially seemed to like Neville while Luna was her usual amusing self. Harry was pleased to see his friends accept Luna for who she was rather than treat her differently because she didn't conform to their own standards. All in all, it had been a good year and, with any luck, next year would be even better.

Chapter 12.5 Dumbledore

It had not been a great year for Albus Dumbledore. To start off with, the Flamels had decided to take back the Philosopher's Stone. They were unhappy that he had used it to try and lure Harry Potter into becoming a hero. Even though this was not what he'd had in mind it is what Sirius had believed and his opinion had swayed the Flamels into changing their minds.

The Ministry of Magic had then held an enquiry into Dumbledore's management of Hogwarts as well as into several other matters. Along the way he had learnt from Mad Eye Moody, a close friend of his in the auror department, that Harry was looking into his Gringotts account and that Sirius was helping him. Dumbledore then decided it was time to step back and voluntarily gave up control of Harry's finances. Since Harry wanted Sirius to have control the obvious thing to do was give the job to Sirius. With any luck that would forestall any further investigation, although he had done nothing wrong with respect to Harry's money anyway. Eventually, the enquiry was put on hold but Dumbledore knew he would need to be more careful in the future.

The DADA position was once again proving problematic. Word had spread quickly that the last teacher to hold this position had died while in the castle itself and this had put off all but one applicant. That one applicant was Gilderoy Lockhart, a man Dumbledore knew to be completely unsuitable for the position. But, as the only candidate, he had been left with no choice but to appoint him. Hoping to prevent any further action by the Ministry Dumbledore had personally gone to the Wizarding Examination Authority (WEA) and explained to them why this had happened. Luckily they had accepted his explanation and there would be no further action over it.

Unfortunately, it took only 3 days for Lockhart to do something that resulted in a full scale enquiry into both Lockhart's and Dumbledore's competence. Even worse, the fact that 2 students ended up needing medical treatment very nearly resulted in both himself and Lockhart being suspended. The Ministry and the WEA only ended their investigation when Dumbledore told Lockhart he was forbidden to bring any creatures or objects into class and to restrict himself solely to book related study in the future.

Finally, things began to settle down with only the usual incidents that happened every year. This continued until after Christmas when Madam Bones, head of the DMLE, contacted him saying they had now uncovered evidence that Rubeus Hagrid had been wrongly expelled. She provided a summary of the evidence, including the fact that a diary had been recovered and, after thorough analysis, it had been determined that someone else had opened the Chamber of Secrets and had been responsible for the death of a student. Dumbledore immediately reinstated Hagrid and tried to obtain the diary only to be told it had been destroyed to prevent it falling into the wrong hands. Dumbledore later asked Harry about it but was told only what he already knew; that Harry had seen Lucius Malfoy place the diary in Ginny Weasley's cauldron and that, after research by Ministry, they diary had been destroyed.

Nothing else happened until just before Easter when Mad-Eye Moody was suspended from the auror department. Madam Bones had discovered it was Moody who had been passing information onto Dumbledore from within the Ministry. Luckily for Moody has previous good service to the Ministry put him in good stead and, instead of dismissal, he had been offered early retirement on full entitlement. This did, however, leave Dumbledore needing to find another source of information from inside the Ministry.

Only a few days later, during the Easter holiday, Professor Flitwick informed him of a very serious case of bullying that had occurred earlier that day. A 1st year, Luna Lovegood, had been having a shower when several of her dorm mates had stolen her clothes and thrown them into the lake. Flitwick had requested Dumbledore countersign the order of suspension that he had imposed on the students. What had surprised Dumbledore the most was that it had been Harry Potter who had gone to Luna's assistance. He hadn't realised Harry even knew her but then he realised Harry may have simply been in the right place at the right time. He knew it was in Harry's nature to help people whenever he could so it seemed likely this is what had happened.

In early June Madam Bones had contacted him again about Lockhart. They had uncovered evidence of 'Witness Tampering' by illegal use of memory charms involving Lockhart and she requested his assistance in laying a trap for him. Dumbledore immediately agreed to the request. In fact, it had proved remarkably easy to trap Lockhart. The first plan outlined to him was so obvious Dumbledore seriously doubted it would work. He had, therefore, been very surprised that it had worked perfectly. Lockhart openly confessed to what he had done and was immediately escorted from the castle and placed under arrest. The WEA agreed that all students be credited with a pass in this subject regardless of their actual mark so all Dumbledore needed to do now was find a new DADA teacher for next year.